The School Year
by Dark-AmethystUnicorn
Summary: Leon is pretty much the only sane teacher in the school. This is going to be a series of related one shots.Has some Cloud/Leon in chpt3.
1. Caffeine

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

They were teachers, they shaped the future generations into the educated members of society. The future had never looked so scary…or so very stupid. Leon was sure that most of his co-workers had terrified their universities into _giving_ them the degree and that they needed _really_ a warning stamped in big red letters on the application forms; 'Caution: People of questionable sanity and intelligence teach here.'

Not a particularly inspired title but whatever.

**The School Year**

Caffine

Something was very wrong with all but three of his fellow teachers, Leon observed with a tight look. Most of his co-workers had been lethargic for a week or two; many also nursed severe headaches or migraines. The only upshot was Vexen's absence from the staffroom. The Chemistry teacher made his blood run cold for some reason so his lack of attendance was well-cherished by Leon. The only exceptions to this peculiar affliction were the school Nurse Aerith, Cid Highwind the Auto-shop teacher and Sora who seemed more…mischievous.

…that didn't bode well. He noted grimly with a sage nod as he watched Aerith dispense aspirin to the immensely grateful faculty. Gripping his can of coke tighter he made his way over to where the petite Art teacher, Naminé, was trying to fight off a headache and make sense of her students' not-meant-to-be-abstracts, to offer the poor woman some assistance.

Hindsight was truly twenty-twenty.

His co-workers had been suffering from caffeine withdrawal. Sora, he discovered, had switched the staffroom coffee supply with _decaf_. Leon knew this because now a month and a half later the damned Japanese teacher switched it back, conveniently at a time when their co-works had overcome their caffeine dependency and traded it for a low caffeine tolerance.

This was why he personally brought a coke from the vending machine in the cafeteria instead of using the coffee machine. Caffeine was **guaranteed**.

Sighing to himself, he comforted yet another traumatised student. There were many of them that day. The caffeine reinstated into the coffee supply with into the high consumption rate per _teacher_…his questionable colleagues were on a high of insane proportions…even for high school.

"Marluxia!" He barked abandoning the sobbing quarterback and placing himself between the horticulture teacher and the trembling wresting team. "_The boys do not want to smell like roses!_"

"Cherry blossom for them then? Rose for you?"

Leon's eye twitched as he backed away slowly. "…boys, you're on your own." He ignored the look of horrors as the students realised their one sane teacher was abandoning them. "…Keep in mind, _lasting_ damage results in detention. Lots of detention." He smirked lightly to himself as he saw the gears turning in their heads before darting around the corner when he bumped into another frantic student, one he quickly identified as Iago, who was failing his history class quite badly.

"Mr. Leonhart! Mr. Strife has gone crazy in the gym!"

"Doesn't he always?" The brunet mumbled taking off in the direction of the gymnasium with a scowl. He paused at a stairwell to warn students from going upstairs; Axel and Roxas were engaged in a _violent_ paintball war with Zexion and Demyx. Axel was declaring all bystanders as traitors which he promptly tried to eliminate. It wasn't a pretty sight and Leon doubted poor little Abu would be able to look at paint without mental trauma ever again. Equally out of bounds was the art room were Naminé and Kairi were throwing mounds of clay at anything that moved with a shrieks that sounded something like 'Werewolf!', Leon chose not to dwell there long. He'd discovered moments later that Lexeaus was holed up in his classroom creating piñatas out of his teaching notes. No harm there, so Leon made a careful note to stay away from the man when the Physics teacher discovered what he'd done to his own notes.

The Principal's office was no longer a sanctuary either; Ansem was tied to his chair with electrical cords and was being held hostage by Xemnas who had taken over the intercom and demanded that the school submit to darkness. That was, of course, what you saw if you got past the secretary, Larxene. Larxene, when Leon had braved going in at interval to report the problem with the staff, had been firing staples at the door (He nearly got one in the forehead, damnit he didn't need another scar!). The sadistic secretary had also been gluing all the paperwork to the walls and had, much to Leon's amazement, glued the minutes from the last board meeting to the ceiling. He had been thankful when he'd stopped by the garage to find Cid simply vibrating in his place and talking at an incomprehensible speed. Students rarely listened to Cid anyway, except to pick new swear words so little damage was accounted there.

Tifa and Yuffie were the scariest.

Leon had been forced to order the girls to form a warning system for the boys. Lockhart and Kisaragi were 'spreading the word' of Yaoi, which they claimed to be "the new religion". This consisted of showing their male students graphic doujinshi and demanding re-enactments, or screeching at the heterosexual boys to convert to homosexuality. Leon could only pray that a new wave of homophobia didn't break out.

Leon didn't care to discover what the remainder of colleagues were up to; what he'd seen was bad enough to have him wonder if the school would fund his therapy. After all it was the stress of the job and the pressure of dealing with the other staff members that took a toll on his precious sanity.

Opening the door to the gym Leon was greeted with a baseball bat spinning past his head, nicking his ear. His eyes narrowed and locked onto the blonde coach.

"Strife." He growled, his voice a low rumble of thunder, much to the delight of the captive students. Walking in further, he waved the shaken teenagers out the door as he stopped two metres away from the other man.

"Leonhart! You let Sephiroth's remnants get away!"

_I should've known_. He thought mournfully, even high the blonde's first thought was of the rivalling coach at the private school across town. Nobody understood the enmity between the two men. According to Tifa who'd grown up with them, they'd hated each other since day one of preschool. For some absurd reason, Cloud decided in high school that Sephiroth was a genetic experiment bent on destroying the world and Sephiroth in return declared Cloud to be a puppet of darkness. Leon had chosen to stay out of the matter, instead referring the psychology teacher Axel to it. Axel had been eternally grateful to Leon; apparently the pair made a fascinating case study.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Leon fixed Cloud with a glare. "They're not…remnants? The _hell_ Strife?" He quickly cut off the man before he could respond. "No! J-just…no."

"You look upset." Cloud noted cheerfully twirling a tennis racket around with fast movements while spinning a basketball on the index finger of the other hand. a jerk of his hand had the racket coming perilously close to hitting Leon in a sensitive place.

"_Put the sports gears down_."

Leon was surprised to see the other comply with no protest but he knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. He grabbed Cloud's wrist and dragged him to the coach's office. There he proceeded to dump the blonde on the couch before rummaging in the overstock fridge for the beer he knew the blonde kept.

"Alcohol is a depressant; it should counteract the caffeine, right?" He reasoned aloud, cracking open a bottle and handing it Cloud with an order to drink. As the man happily chugged the beverage down Leon groaned as the realisation hit that he'd now have a caffeine high staff and one drunken co-worker to contend with.

"Screw Harry Potter. This is where the _real_ evil happens. A quiet year's impossible at this school."

Owari.


	2. Computer Bug

A short while ago there was a glitch in the computers at the uni I attend, the photocopiers are run through computers so I couldn't log on to print my essay or photocopy the questions for another assignment for a week. It was fustrating but it made for an interesting time because everything is so computer-orientated. We laughed about it quite a bit in Japanese class and managed to talk sensei into giving us a week's extension on our assignment (That assignment wasn't actually affected by the glitch, which made that much more awesome). On another note, I haven't been updating recently because first I was swamped with essays and assignments and second: After completeing the essays I was sick to death of microsoft word.

**Computer Bug**

"The hell?" Leon grounded out, glowering at the photocopier.

"Yea that's not working." Sora supplied unhelpfully. He chuckled at the responding glare as he hauled himself up onto the table and kicked his legs out and cheerfully elaborated. "Bug in the computer network, no one can log in or copy anything."

Leon muttered an oath under his breath. How the hell was he supposed to give a test with no question papers? Well okay, he could postpone it; no doubt his students would love that idea, but…they had no computers for the day. Theirs was a school full of proud techno-junkies; it didn't take straight A's to know one's way around computers and the internet. Leon's hands curled into fists: how the heck was the school going to survive?

_Cold Turkey_.

This phrase, evidently, meant full attendance.

He _knew_ his frequent absentees had been skipping to play in the computer lab! With no computers the usual hooky wasn't happening and all of his students –bar those legitimately absent- were in class. With no test papers Leon had nothing prepared for class so he'd simply told his students to do whatever; so long as 'whatever' wasn't too loud and stayed in the room. He was seeing a lot of the new portable gaming consoles (and a few games he promised to buy himself on payday), and he was catching up on the school gossip. Though he didn't really care if Belle and 'The Beast' were on the outs again; really, that couple needed a revolving door to go with their relationship.

The dull roar of his students enjoying an extra hour of leisure was easy enough to work with. Leon sat at his desk fine-tuning his lesson plans for the next week. He had a hunch that the computers and photocopiers were going to be for a bit longer and he wasn't going to waste anymore class-time because of it. Aside from the occasionally extroverted student drawing him briefly into a conversation. He was generally left alone by the teenagers and was able to modify and improve the next month's worth of lessons.

Of course, peace at this school was always short-lived and normally quite brutally murdered. A week later the computers were still down, Leon pressed on with lessons. He was in the middle of outlining the tactics of a medieval battle that had the boys riveted and the girls fidgeting when a scream of utter rage echoed through the hallways. Unlike the bewildered students –some of whom had fallen out of their chairs- Leon didn't need to wonder who that voice was. The eventful years of his career at this school had earned him a Masters in deciphering the differing screams of his fellow teachers. It was something he took a quiet pride in as depending on who screamed and the tone of that yell, Leon was often able to tell when to confront and when to evacuate his students the hell out of school.

In this case, Yuffie was the culprit. Leon sank low in his chair and silently counted down from twenty. The instant he reached zero the door banged open and Yuffie barged in, sending the boys flying to the nearest hiding place –it seemed that they hadn't quite recovered from the Caffeine Incident. He stood up slowly, an apprehensive expression on his face as he met the wild-eyed gaze of the Home Ec teachers. Yuffie pulled at her hair and flailed for a moment before throwing her head back and falling to her knees.

"I can't take it anymore! Why? What did I do to offend the Yaoi Gods?"

Leon backed away slowly and shared a bemused look with the front row.

"Lee-ooon." She whimpered piteously, staring up at him with wounded eyes. "Why did the yaoi gods take the computers? What did I do to deserve being cut off from my yaoi source?"

"Don't you have internet at home?" He moaned, pressing a hand over his eyes as his students looked on in varying degrees of wonder. He suffered four years of college, hostel food, messy dorm-mates and a huge student debt for this? He'd had most of that for free at his father's house. Yuffie was a sweet kid most of the time, but when her yaoi obsession came into play, forget it.

Yuffie's eyes nearly popped out. "_On a teacher's salary_?!"

"Right. Sorry." He winced and backed up two more steps. It truly did pay to have a computer-obsessed old man for a neighbour, he decided quietly as Yuffie foamed at the mouth and panted furiously, especially since old man Tron insisted that Leon spend an obscene amount of time at his house drinking apple cidar and helping the elder to enjoy his unlimited broadband. Not that the teacher complained; all it cost him was enjoyable conversation and repairing a roof that never failed to leak during the wet months.

Yuffie started laughing.

Normally, that wasn't something to be intimated by. Yuffie laughed a lot; it was very much a permanent background noise anyplace the young woman occupied. But this laugh was different. In fact Leon would go so far as to call it downright evil. Were he a drama or literature teacher he'd probably later describe shadows twining around the woman as her face shadowed, eyes glinting like sinister stars as he mouth stretched into a serpentine smile…

But Leon was the history teacher, thus he simply settled for describing it as 'scary as fuck'.

"Preciousssss…."

The Gollum impersonations never boded well in this particular work place. Last time Sora had been the impersonator and his dog Stitch had promptly stolen everyone's left shoe and deposited them in a pile at the gleeful Japanese teacher's feet. Leon's eyes narrowed as he tried to furtively signal his students to leave. The bolder students immediately dived out the window with squeakily heroic yells. The others scooted around the two teachers and darted out the door, sensing that the usual sort of Yuffie-styled drama was about to commence.

"Yuffie." Leon opted for a calm, even tone and resisted the urge to run screaming for Aerith. Yuffie wasn't someone he was normally scared of, but given her current state Leon was sure he'd rather be stuck between Cloud and Sephiroth during one of their arguments. "Let's just talk about this, okay?"

Leon felt a shiver run down his spine as the woman began to talk in light, eerie and thoroughly terrifying tone of voice. "Talk? Oh yes. Let's talk bout the hot man sex I can't see 'cause there's no internet! What's your preference Lee? Blonde or brunet seme? I like blonde semes personally, brunet ones are too mainstream and cliché. Tall dark and all that shit. It's nice to be different you know. You're a brunet Lee, let's get you some loving!" With that final proclamation which sent Leon's stomach spiralling down to meet his toes, Yuffie lunged.

Leon backed up quickly, faking a left-dodge before launching himself to the right and out the door. He decided now was a good time to indulge in his previously restrained urge.

"_**Aerith**_!"

Aerith looked up from stitching a gash on Cloud's arm –silly man left the kendo team use real swords (they were a sword team Cloud argued, not a bamboo stick team!) and it finally caught up on him. The pair watched with mild interest as Leon flew into the room, slamming the door closed and promptly barricading it with the nurse's desk.

"Yuffie?" Cloud queried shrewdly. At Leon's nod he sighed and shook his head. "Knew she'd crack first. Though Vexen can't be too far behind."

"Tell me the computer's are nearly fixed." Leon pleaded, an uncharacteristic note of hysteria in his voice as a loud bang announced Yuffie had collided with the door. The trio winced at the sound.

"We'll have the computer system running again on Monday according to Principal Ansem." Aerith reassured him, eyeing the heaving door warily. "What's wrong with Yuffie?"

"Yaoi withdrawal." Cloud cringed in sympathy, instantly piecing together the rest of the story from those two words.

"Oh is that all?" Came the nurse's mild reply as she fished around in a usually locked cabinet. Ignoring the stunned looks on the men's faces, she extracted two glossy books before standing by the door. "Yuffie? Calm down, sweetie." She soothed. "I have some doujinshi for you."

The pounding stopped.

At Aerith's pointed look, Leon tentatively unblocked the doorway and allowed the door to swing open as he jumped back behind Cloud.

Yuffie's teary hopeful face their view. "Yaoi?" She whispered longingly, looking up at Aerith with a childlike expression of trust.

"Yaoi, dear. Would you like a lollipop too?"

"Raspberry?"

Nodding softly, Aerith smiled and handed the items over with a flourish to an instantly gleeful Yuffie who hugged her and sprinted down the corridor with a loud whoop. Turning around, the nurse smiled at the stunned pair of men and tapped their noses playfully. "I'm the school nurse." She reminded them airily and Leon had the distinct impression she was laughing at him. "I cure all ailments, especially those unique to our staff."

Cloud exhaled sharply as the woman strutted out back to pick up fresh bandages.

"Damn."

End.


	3. April Fools

Warning: Okay a bit of CloudxLeon pairing in this one; it's in a humorous context so if you don't like yaoi it's not really a big deal. Well I don't think it is, but my perception on such matters probably isn't very reliable.

**Aprils Fools**

Leon had a near-perfect work attendance, much like his attendance record from his own high school days. He didn't take days off often. That was probably why Ansem was always quick to grant what little time off he did request. But one day a year in particular tempted him to call in sick and take off for greener fields, just like his colleagues frequently did.

April First. April Fools.

In a normal school one would expect the students to be the problem. Leon, however, did not work in a normal school; he worked in a school full of the most fearfully controversial teachers the system had to offer. On April Fool's these teachers went crazy with pranks. Leon could remember his first year working with them; April Fools had been funny that year right up until Yuffie had half-filled his classroom with pudding. And he and his homeroom pupils still hadn't gotten the ink stains out of their shirts from last year. Larxene had been the prankster on that occasion; Leon had silently retaliated by hiding her pens and stapler, the woman went berserk on poor Axel convinced the redhead had done the deed. Leon was grateful he held the title of the Responsible One amongst the staff; it saved his hide whenever he felt the need to hit back as no one would dream of believing him capable of such things.

Leon could take the day off, he had more than enough paid leave stocked up for a good sabbatical. But Leon was the Responsible One; he didn't just abandon the poor unsuspecting students when they needed him most. By sophomore year they'd learnt to stay away from school should April 1st fall on a weekday. It was the freshmen that had Leon loyally maintaining his post. Those wide-eyed innocent little lambs that were unaware of the potential slaughter they faced. Thus, Leon's survival instincts were muted; preventing him from hearing the voice begging him to take him the sights a train ride away. It wasn't like he was alone; Ansem and Aerith were there to halt the worst of the faculty in their tracks. For example, Vexen's first year at the school had taught them to ban the blonde from the lab that final week of March; no one's quite sure what happened to animated mystery meat loaf he concocted. But Demyx swears it runs wild at the far end of the fields.

_Well, damn_.

At his usual chair in the staffroom, Leon sat dumbstruck. Aerith and Ansem were both absent. The only ones capable of controlling the staff were gone –though Ansem had this crazy idea Leon would do fine. No, no Leon wouldn't do fine thank you very much. He might be able to keep Sora, Roxas, and Marluxia from going overboard but every one else was going to run wild. He was now guarding a crumbling fortress with no way to protect his poor students. Some of the seniors had even shown up; they probably didn't check the calendar before leaving home. But one would think the ominous cackling echoing from Larxene's office would have them running for the hills; hell, Leon nearly bolted.

By the time the lunch break mercifully arrived, Leon was tempted to declare the school a war zone and call in the army. Vexen had spent the morning in his lab and at around eleven o'clock Zexion had stormed into Leon's classroom cursing the blonde scientist. This year Vexen had apparently created floating puffballs with razor sharp teeth that enjoyed the taste of the standard cotton uniform shirts the students wore. Vexen had yelled April Fools before unleashing the monstrosities on Zexion's students. Over the delighted yells of Vexen, Leon had used the intercom to warn everyone away from the science block.

Sora had brought Stitch to school again. Leon normally loved the odd blue furball but today Stitch had a taste for hair. Leon had spent his interval standing in the middle of the staffroom so the dog couldn't reach his hair. Tifa hadn't been so lucky. Leon had turned red at the curses the girl's P.E. teacher spat out as Stitch happily chewed on her hair, swinging from the woman's attempt's to get him off.

Third period hadn't been much better. The students had been tense, startling at any sudden noise. Leon had tried to keep things normal but that went out the window when a student from Axel's class arrived covered in soot. Axel had started a bonfire in his classroom again. Since Demyx was flooding the music block, Leon had directed the Music teacher over to Axel's room with a stern reminder that once the fire was out, Leon didn't want a single drop of water in the building. In hindsight that had been stupid on his part. Ten minutes later, Leon looked out his window to see the social sciences block flooded, water pouring out of the windows on the first, second and third floors.

However, he had to give Demyx points for creativity. He couldn't figure out how the blonde had managed to flood the building like that in so short a time span.

As he sat at his desk, enjoying the brief silence of his free period, Leon sighed and went over the other pranks the teachers' had pulled off. Lexeaus had filled the pool with rocks. Zexion rearranged the library books which had the students in a panic trying to find much needed books for their assignments. Kairi and Naminé had doused the chairs of their classrooms with glue. Their first period students were either walking around in their gym shorts or scooting along on the chairs. Tifa had relabelled all the weights on the gym's weight machines and promptly laughed her head off at the weight-lifting team when they failed to lift the 'ten kilogram' weight. Larxene had traumatised the student body by the Barney song on repeat and sneak attacking them with the staple-gun. Marluxia covered the cafeteria in pollen-rich flowers and deposited a beehive there. Roxas settled for stink-bombs in the boys toilets. Riku switched the labels of the boys and girls' locker room in the gym after a few students had gone in. Leon spent the second period dealing with the reactions to that one. One boy had been given a rather impressive black eye and bloodied nose for accidentally walking into the girls' locker room.

Yuffie had made clear gelatine and covered most of the hallways in it. Anytime someone stepped out of a classroom they went for a surprise skate before crashing into the wall or falling over. Cid had his first class convinced that the odd box on his desk was a cannon and wouldn't hesitate to fire it if anyone failed to correctly answer his questions. These questions ranged from 'why are you so damn short' to 'what the hell is nuclear fission and why don't the fuck don't we got it yet?" When a student had finally answered a question incorrectly, the poor boy had been so sure he was going to die; he promptly fainted when all Cid's 'cannon' fired was a stream of confetti. Xigbar and Xaldin had taken a hypnotism course over the previous summer and their students subsequently imitated farm animals whenever they heard the bell.

Thankfully Xemnas was in a mellow mood and sticking to his personal favourite; jumping out at students and screaming 'Kingdom Hearts! Submit to Darkness!'

Sighing again, Leon stood up and decided to head to the gym. Cloud was one of the few teachers inconsistent with April Fools. Sometimes he went all out, other times he merely brooded in a corner. The gym looked normal enough when he arrived; Cloud was at the far end setting up the balance beams.

"Leon. Perfect timing."

Leon instantly decided he didn't like the sound of that almost _perky_ tone.

As Leon's expression grew apprehensive, Cloud nodded and offered a small smirk. "I'm not targeting the students."

Leon's mood perked up a little.

Cloud's smile widened and Leon felt that spark of hope start to teeter on a cliff-edge. "I'm targeting Vexen."

Leon's hope promptly fell off the cliff and onto the sharp, jagged rocks waiting below with only the tiniest of whimpers. That was _not_ good. Leon backed away slowly under an amused blue-eyed gaze. Messing with Vexen was never a good thing. There were so few ways to get under the scientist's skin. Smashing his lab equipment for one…but Cloud was here and decidedly not breaking any beakers so that left…Leon's' eyes narrowed, his pride smarting at the mere implication and determined to reassert itself. The problem with Cloud was that when he decided to indulge in April Fools, nothing stopped him. But Leon sure as hell wasn't taking this sitting down.

"_Absolutely __**not**__."_

Smirk vanishing, the blonde took a step forward. Leon decided to hell to pride; he spun on his heel and shot out the gym with a yell. "This better be an April Fools on me, Strife!"

Rapid footfalls behind him alerted him that the blonde was giving chase. "Nope!"

Leon responded with something one should never say in a school full of impressionable teenagers as he dashed past the soccer team and threw one boy behind him in attempt to slow Cloud down. In hindsight he should have known better than to attempt to outrun a gym teacher who actually exercised alongside his students, even showing the star athletes up. Cloud tackled him just outside the staffroom. Leon landed painfully on his side with a loud thud to the astonishment of the awed students.

"Back to class." The P.E. teacher directed curious students with a dark look. "Or I'll put you on weights in the gym." The concerned students promptly scattered.

"Mr. Strife; get off of Mr. Leonhart."

_Vexen. Of course._ Leon thought sardonically with a roll of his eyes. This day absolutely hated him.

"You're right Vexen." Cloud granted the man a respectful look. The elder blonde did a comical double take. The Chemistry teacher rarely garnered respect from his younger colleagues. For Cloud, it was that time Vexen had tried to make his own sugar alternative and left it in the staffroom where Cloud mistook for the glass of juice Yuffie was meant to have poured him. It turned his skin orange. Cloud had hatefully declared a quiet war on Vexen in that moment. Leon just snickered whenever Vexen's experiments went weird. The man unnerved him but the brunet was never in the line of fire.

…until now. Leon watched on horrified as Cloud turned him on his back. Vexen had a full beaker in his hands which the brunet now eyed with trepidation. He could only hope the contents didn't end up on him. "Cloud." He growled out warningly.

"CPR!" The blonde declared with an unholy light in his eyes. A moment later Vexen's beaker smashed on the floor as he shrieked like a teen unfortunate enough to walk in on their parents enjoying intimacy on the dining table. Cloud had ducked down and kissed Leon. Vexen wailed about his eyes bleeding when Cloud gave a loud fake moan and melodramatically rocked his hips into Leon's. Too mortified to actually do anything Leon simply made a mental note to mock Cloud for this later while hanging the blonde from the gym's climbing ropes. As Cloud pulled back, Vexen ran off sobbing for Aerith, forgetting or unaware that the motherly nurse was absent that day.

Vexen had issues with homosexuality. Leon thought weakly as he stumbled to his feet, pride sorely bruised. No one knew the details but the man was traumatised by any image of two men involved in _that way_.

"April Fools, Vexen." Cloud murmured smugly, patting Leon's shoulder with a patronising hand. The bell rang loudly at that moment, snapping Leon out his daze. Elbowing the blonde sharply in the solar plexus, the brunet stormed off to his classroom. A warning look was all it took to silence any questions concerning his dishevelled state.

Next year Leon was going to phone in sick. To hell with protecting the innocent. They were on the own.

And Leon was going to take a leaf out of Yuffie's book and fill the gym with pudding after everyone had gone home that night.

End


End file.
